The Quest for the Perfect Gold Hoops

Elle Strauss, our Senior Fashion Editor, is on the hunt for the "perfect pair of gold hoop earrings—not too big or small." She’s just getting the wheels in motion, though, so for her it’s more of a next-few-weeks search than a must-find-by-lunch one. "Catbird might have some good options…" she trailed off when telling me about her quest the other day. But in doing so, she not only convinced me that I want gold hoop earrings too, she convinced me I want them right this second.

Glamorous but not too colorful or bling-y, they really are the best pool jewelry. That’s important to me. And they’re also ideal for tossing in your weekend bag as a default, since they’re as polished as they are versatile. Provided, of course, they’re the Elle kind, the pretty-but-not-overwhelming, perfectly-sized kind of gold hoop—like these few in the slideshow below, which all fall in the ideal 1-inch to 2-inch drop range. (It’s like the Goldilocks sweet spot for hoops, neither little-kid-just-pierced-my-ears-tiny or J.Lo-music-video-ginormous, but right in between and perfect.)